Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Aeons ago, when we moved to the Yoo-Nahted States, we were urged mightily to go to The Game. So we did. What a great night out. Fill your face with hot dogs! Get slightly sozzled! Seventh innings stretch! Do the politically incorrect Tomahawk Chop! Watch the lovely ladies during amazingly frequent commercial breaks! Laugh at the hilarious man dressed as a furry animal! Puzzle over the stats on vast screens! Marvel at the blimp! Drive home with all the doors locked!1

On my third or fourth visit I realised some men in stripy pyjamas tucked into their socks were playing a game too. And although the game was rounders, with big cheaty gloves and large salaries, from that point on I was hooked. I learnt the rules, and the subtleties of the game. I even went as far as learning what RBI stood for, although I forget now. (Raking Billions In? Run! Balls Itchy? Reuben's Bagel Imporium? Nope, it's gone)

So we were fans. But when we returned to England we naturally turned to cricket instead. And it's much better! Why?

a) It lasts longer. Test matches last five days. Five days.

b) It's a closer contest. Most five-day test matches end in a draw. Or a tie, which is different.2

c) It's sartorially superior, with jolly nice white trousers, sensible jerseys, plastic codpieces and schoolboy-type caps. All very super, in a Village People sort of way.

d) There are no commercial breaks, but it's so slow you can have a beer/pee/nap/twiglet break whenever you feel like it.

e) Like all the best sports, cricket is more or less incomprehensible. Players take up positions with names like Silly Mid Off, Long Fine Leg and Third Slip. Batsmen can be out in any of a dozen ways, including hitting your own wicket. Which is less painful than it sounds.

On the downside, there are no scantily-clad cheerleaders. But the dinner ladies at the Hampshire Rosebowl are simply gorgeous.3

So cricket wins (unlike England 90% of the time).

Which brings me to football.

I have to tell you I went to about twenty American so-called Football games in Washington and Atlanta, and no-one kicked the ball. Not even once. They just threw it around like a bunch of gurlies. And the huge geezers running around the field looking tough? Once they get all that Kevlar padding off, I bet they turn out to be 120-pound metrosexual weenies with personal trainers, Rolexes and stockbrokers. Probably.

Game over.

1 - It's a tradition in America to build stadia in the roughest part of town, so the players can buy their cocaine on the way in2 - Unless it rains, in which case it just stops3 - After six pints of lager

No, UberG, no. You have it backasswards. Cricket is silly. It's all cucumber sandwiches and taking five freaking days to play a game. And it's so slow. And the scoring makes ZERO sense. Baseball is awesome. It makes sense, it's gripping, men in tight pants (!), no old man pullovers, and I'd like to see a pansy bowler throw a ball as hard as a pitcher. Pah, pansy sports.

See, to me, a sport without scantily clad cheerleaders just isn't a sport.

Even though I don't understand the rules of American Football (kind of like a stoppy-starty rugby with 80's shoulderpads?) I quite like going to games (a) because of the aforementioned scantily clad cheerleaders and (b) because of the snacks.

I was going to start singing "I Don't Like Cricket" there, but thought better of it. Now I know that damn song will be in my head all night now! Anyway, since we are going to have a disagreement with America about this, I'm on your side, Urber. I can just about understand cricket, and especially the guy who wears all the jumpers and waves his hand around, imitating waves, but how can one-day cricket last all week? Our football isn't the same as American or Australian football, What the Americans call football is what we call rugby, and I can never tell when the football season is over, because to me it's played all year around!Oh, I'll just stick with rounders and net-ball because we had them first, and they just make up the rules as they go along. Now, don't get me started on golf, because that's a silly game. Just a guy beating the hell out of a little ball, and another guy pulling along a trolley full of other different sizes of sticks to beat the little ball with. And the aim is to get the little ball into a hole!The things men do to amuse themselves! Go and make a brass P.C. instead!

Your first footnote made me, um, snort. There's probably some truth to it. Baseball is a beautiful sport, but I prefer it at the minor-league level where the players aren't making a million dollars a game.

Hah! I've done my fair share of Tomahawk chops down South! We chopped our way to the world series that year. The beer and chilidawgs...the organ music... Baseball rules, football is vastly overrated. I've never understood cricket, and the name makes me think of little insects...or crickety old men.. Soccer (football) is the best, but Italian players lurve to fake the fouls! It's comical, really.Great post!

Cricket is the perfect game for American sports fans because of the vast array of statistics. The only problem is attention span which is why we have invented Twenty20 which is the wham-bham thank you ma'am version of the game. I think cricket lost something when they introduced leg pads...